Called to Partnership

Called to Partnership
1 Corinthians 1:1-9; Isaiah 49:1-7; John 1:29-42

Before pastors were seminary-educated, a future pastor would study under an experienced pastor. One student was being coached in preaching. The old preacher said, “Every sermon has three parts. First, you tell the folks what you’re going to tell them. Then you tell them. After that you tell them what you told them.”

Paul does the same sort of thing in the letter we know as First Corinthians. We very quickly learn that this was probably not the initiating correspondence between the apostle and the congregation which he had founded and with which he had spent as much as eighteen months training and forming them into a vital community of Christ believers. Unfortunately the NSA wasn’t gathering data in those days or we would have every letter, email, and voice communication that Paul had been party to. And we wouldn’t have speculate about some of the missing pieces in the extended conversation.

The church in Corinth was probably a collection of several house churches. That is, it didn’t have a nice building like we are used to. They were still a new church development. They may have all gotten together periodically, not necessarily weekly. But small groups of the folks would gather in homes of certain leaders for Bible study, for prayer, for discussion of how keep safe from the authorities yet introduce other people to the Good News of Jesus Christ. Think of how we might do it here. We already have the Presbyterian Women’s circles as a kind of model. Some folks could meet my house a couple of times a week. Others might go to Audrey’s house, since she has lots of room. Another group might meet with Bob and Kitty Neely at the far country known as Lake White. There would likely be several other groups.

What would happen is that each group would develop its own identity, its own flavor of the gospel. The leaders would meet every so often to do their own Bible study, to compare notes from their groups, and to plan for the larger meetings. More than likely, however, the groups would begin to reflect the character and views of each leader.

That’s where the problems started, at least as Paul understood the messages which he was receiving from different members of the church. The leaders of the various groups and their viewpoints on the gospel were becoming more important than the gospel itself. People were starting to say that they followed Apollos or Paul or someone else, rather than Christ. The house churches of the larger congregation were becoming fractious factions disrupting the unity of the church and derailing the message of salvation in Christ.

From what we know of Paul, he was more than a little upset about this. But he counted to ten and wrote several drafts of his letter before posting it. Like the seasoned preacher, he alludes to what he is going tell the Corinthians. Then he begins with great wisdom and sensitivity. He doesn’t charge in ridiculing the various leaders, or picking one over another. That would only deepen the divisions that were forming.

Paul briefly reminds them of his credentials – “called by God’s will to be an apostle of Jesus Christ” – which he will touch on again several chapters later – and then moves on to talk about the Corinthians themselves. He addresses the whole church – “God’s church that is in Corinth” and “all those who call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place.” Paul reaffirms the corporate consciousness which he had instilled in them in his year and a half ministry among them. Paul rises above the factions and reminds the people that all together they are the local expression of the universal church which meets in every place.

Not only are they the local manifestation of the whole church, they have a share in the universal calling. They are “those who have been made holy to God in Christ Jesus, who are called to be God’s people.” They are called to be “saints,” as the traditional language reads, or as Eugene Peterson phrases it in The Message, they are “set apart for a God-filled life.”

The apostle’s underlying thought here is, regardless of what faction the individual believers may be aligning themselves with, they are failing to live up to their call. They are forgetting that they have been washed, justified, and sanctified. That’s another thought that the apostle goes into later on in the letter.

Rather than upbraiding them from the start, Paul reminds them of the blessing that they have been. He give thanks for the Corinthians, “because of God’s grace that was given to you in Christ Jesus.”  The incredible promise of the gospel is that no matter how messed up we were prior to meeting Jesus, once we’re connected to the world of the cross, through belief, through baptism, through our daily attempts at faithfulness, we are adopted daughters and sons, we are heirs to the riches of God’s eternal realm. No matter how often we slam the church for doing things we disagree with, no matter how often we accuse a “they” of being infidels and apostates, no matter how often we don’t live up to our meager understanding of obedience to Christ, God’s grace is not taken from us. We deserve death and destruction, but instead, we have been sentenced to love and life.

Paul tells the Corinthians, “You were made rich through him in everything: in all your communication and every kind of knowledge....you aren’t missing any spiritual gift while you wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed.” Yes, the Corinthians may be a ragtag bunch of broken believers, which we can sometimes identify with, yet they are a bunch of believers gifted by God with grace, hope, and the power of the Spirit. There is a deep well of gifts and talents that simply need to be let out of the prisons of doubt, reluctance, fear, anxiousness, and lack of God-vision.

We are graced. We are gifted. And we have a guarantee. “God is faithful, and you were called by him to partnership with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” God is faithful. The future is secure because Christ has promised that in the end, no matter what, he will return, he will resurrect, he will find us faultless, he will establish his rule, and until all that happens, he will keep his church alive.

Very few people follow in the family profession any more. There too many other possibilities for career tracks. The economy is more volatile and the technology is changing at an increasingly rapid pace. Most of our children and grandchildren can no longer expect to work for the same company or have the same career for forty years. We grew up seeing shop signs like “Brown and Son Hardware” or “Stone and Sons Contractors.” Even family farms aren’t being handed down to the next generation.

That’s not the case with the gospel. God calls us to partnership with Christ. One of the few places were we can see this methodology at work is in law firms. A newly bar-examined lawyer is given an entry level position in a firm. She’ll probably have a mentor to help her get accustomed to the routines. After a number of years of steady, careful work, she’ll be asked to be a junior partner. And if she continues a successful career arc, she will become a senior partner. With each level of advance comes more responsibility. But each level also brings more benefits. Senior partners are responsible for the firm, and they reap a share in the firm’s profit.

We are partners with Christ in the ministry of the gospel. We are entrusted with great responsibility to take the Good News with us wherever we go. We are walking billboards, 3-D YouTube displays of God’s activity in the world. But we also get to have the joy of knowing that Christ is making it all possible. We are partners now so that future partners can also share in grace, mercy, love, hope, joy, and peace of being brothers and sisters of Christ and heirs of eternity.

The Church is not about us. That’s what Paul had to remind the Corinthians. We are no less divided than they were, following leaders more attuned with their own thinking than the thoughts of Christ. The Church is about God in Christ, reconciling the world to God’s self. What a fellowship, what a joy divine!

Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com 

Copyright 2014 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.